I Got Haircut (And Then Saw Some Transvestites)

Nothing overly spectacular has happened over the last week and a bit, hence the lack of updates.
I went on the prowl for a barber on Saturday. Turns out they're one of those things you see everywhere until you go looking for one. I found one in the end in nearby Motomachi (is right next to Sannomiya) that must have been having a quiet day as there were no other customers while I was there.
When asked how I wanted it done, I just told him 'a little short' (in Japanese, of course). That was basically all that was said for the duration, however, it was easily the most thorough haircut I've ever had. He used 3-4 different scissors, these little puffy things to pat this powder over my head, he pulled out the razor at the end for the edges etc and then had some funny bottle of stuff he massaged into my head when he was done. He was an old-ish guy and was very focused once he began with no small talk. He asked me how it looked when he was nearly done and then offered the comb to me to fix anything up (which I didn't).
When I paid he broke into a huge, friendly grin and guided me to the door. So, that was my first haircut in Japan (and my first since I left Aus...).


I went out that night to a Nomihoudai (all you can drink) at a little (like all places are) club/bar for which Duncan had been given a load of ticket a few weeks ago to sell off for. It was a nice place until these 4 transvestites decided to take over the (tiny) stage and then took over the whole event. Scary. If it hadn't been Nomihoudai, I can imagine it would have been much quieter in there from that point, but the 3000 yen entry kept us all there. Every hour or so the 4 of them would go back behind the bar into the staff area and change their costumes, so I guess the staff supported them to some extent.
Then impression I've got from the guys since then (as well as on the night) was that everyone was a bit uncomfortable at the start but once the all-you-can-drink aspect kicked in, everything just seemed 'normal'.I just wrote some details on happenings but decided to get rid of it and leave the imagery of everything up to you...

All that queerness aside, it was ok enough. There were enough of the usual happenings down the other end of the place that it was easy to turn your back on the stage.


On to other topics...

I'll be doing a 'Special Voice' on Christmas day, which is basically a themed Voice 'event' that happens once or so a month. So I'm slowly starting to brainstorm what I'll be doing for it. I was thinking of dressing up as Santa and asking everyone to bring me presents... maybe I'll take some food in. (One thing I wont be doing is singing carols.) I'll at least have to get a hold on a Santa hat.

Kobe is already decorating itself in all the commercial side of Christmas with huge trees in and carols playing throughout shopping centres.
I'm hoping for a phone call about my internet sometime this week. Been waiting way too long for this...

It's been quite wet over here recently. Haven't had a day above 19-20 degrees for a while and it seems to rain at least a little every second or third day.

Found some awesome blocks of chocolate in my 100 yen shop yesterday!

The Nova Japanese staff have a tough job. In the last month we've had 4 of them get transferred permanently to another branch with one day's notice. The thing is that it's just part of the job and they take it in their stride. Machiko, Hotomi and Yusuke were great people and gave a constant great vibe to our school. Yusuke was actually promoted to the manager of another branch (with the incredibly short notice). I never even got a chance to say bye to Machiko since I had my days off when she got moved and Hitomi would have been the same if I hadn't have seen her at an instructor's farewell party. It's just insane that within two days that can be transferred from a branch in Kobe to basically anywhere within a 2 or so hour train ride.In addition to this, you can still see the lights on in our branch at 11pm most nights. They work incredible amounts of overtime for which they get paid no extra for.
Tough job for them and most of them enjoy it only to an extent.